FALL RIVER — It’s a little like a high school pop quiz, maybe taking the test for your driver’s license.

That is to say the room is neat, equipped with a brown laminate table, swivel chairs and a carpet flecked with brown and blue — an institutional space.

It’s Tuesday morning, 9 a.m. and the Job Club at the Fall River Career Center on North Main Street in Fall River is meeting in the face of disappointment.

The eight people around the table are all looking for work and they’re all very local. Two of them live close enough to walk to the center, which, on this bright morning, they did.

“Is easier than finding a place to park,” says Letitia, who was a receptionist for 10 years and has taken the course to become a certified nurse’s assistant.

The Job Club isn’t mandatory for people receiving unemployment benefits, which have slid from a high of 99 weeks during the last recession to a bare 26 weeks this year. For some, that’s six months of security at the end of 30 years work.

People join Job Club for tips and advice in filling out resumes.

Dave Makuch is 58. For 32 years he was a supervisor at EC Pigments, which closed recently.

“I went through four owners,” he says of his life at the plant.

And he has a two-word description of unemployment.

“It sucks,” he says.

“It’s just hard getting out there and finding work,” Letitia says.

Barbara worked for Swank in Taunton, another gone business.

“I worked my way from the factory to the office,” she says, a phrase that describes 36 years of her life. She has most recently taken a course in Microsoft Office.

“It’s overwhelming,” Letitia says of unemployment and the job search.

Makuch has sent out 100 resumes.

Eileen worked in a hospital from 1971 on and was a clerical worker.

“My job was eliminated,” she says.

Lance has been a driver. Sean, the kid of the group, is looking for something computer related.

People in Fall River watch the unemployment rate like farmers watch the price of corn, and for the same reason: it’s the most important number in their world.

And the number goes up or it goes down, from 13 percent to 10 percent, from 10 percent to 16 percent.

Marilyn Offer runs the group. She’s a senior employment specialist at the center. She passes on tips for resumes, tactics for interviews and, always, hope.

Page 2 of 2 - “Attitude is everything,” she says.

She says it works.

“I have a very high placement rate with this group,” she says.

And there are psychological benefits as well.

“It makes them feel good to get up in the morning and go somewhere,” she says.

The number is up or the number is down. A fat summer and a skinny winter, after the cold shuts down construction. Half-time, full-time, part-time. Benefits and no benefits. Under the table, by the day, by the week, seasonal and year round. Shut down. Lay off. Start up. Night shift. Day shift. Holiday overtime. Forced overtime.

Offer talks about 250 people applying for a handful of jobs, about how important it is to fill in every blank space on an application, the smallest of tips in a time when it’s tough to find work.

“Attitude is everything,” she says.

She says it often, trying to push people through dark times.

Marc Munroe Dion’s “Side Streets” column draws on his knowledge of the area and his affection for the city where he was born. It’s about people and places and history and the voice that comes only from one corner of southeastern Massachusetts.